Abstract: I argue in this paper that "La Figlia che Piange" is T. S. Eliot's first masterpiece to truly reflect his ambition to be a poet of stature and that it is the earliest poem forecasting his poetic signatures that remain throughout the rest of his oeuvre. I also assert that this poem demonstrates Eliot's classic essay, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" in verse. "La Figlia che Piange" can therefore be described as an "ars poetica." Eliot uses the material of a failed union between lovers and their subsequent parting as a way in to his chosen poetic predecessors' material (that of Virgil and Dante), while simultaneously drawing upon individual poetic elements of modern influencers such as Jules Laforgue.